Shooting Elephants
by tylee17
Summary: Max and Alec, an explosion, and a happy ending? ... Shooting elephants with a .22 is probably likelier to happen than that. Right?--For those of you who read "Ten...," this can--but doesn't have to be--considered as some sort of sequel to that story...
1. 22

_Yes, it's true; I'm alive! And this… is somewhat of a follow-up to "Ten…" if you will. Or maybe not. (: either way, it's dedicated to all those who I owe one or the other review, and to those who ever read a piece of my weird writing (: Thanks!

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**Like shooting elephants with a .22**

… Eons had passed since she had said it…

_I love you_

She _had_ really said it, right? Had even repeated it, making sure there would be no mistaking who she meant?

_I love you, Alec_

But no; it couldn't be.—Then again, of course it could. She was severely hurt after all. That deafening noise… At the memory he shook his head in a lame attempt at getting rid of an annoying sense of haziness. With clinical transgenic efficiency he moved to assess Max's poor state of health, beginning with the wound on the back of her head, allowing his hands to travel down her body, assessing each limb individually, not once lingering longer than necessary. His nerve ends were bristling, though for once he didn't like the sort of tension responsible for it.

Max had suffered severe trauma to her head, as well as to her internal organs, that much he could tell. It made it impossible for him, as he rationalized, to move her away from where they both were situated. So close to the center of disaster…

… They hadn't been far away from Command at the time the bomb went off. Alec had basically run into Max on his way there, since both of them had been supposed to discuss Terminal City's more pressing issues with Mole and the guys. Business as usual, so to speak. All was well as long as they still found the time for one or the other friggin' discussion, or so he had told himself right before… yeah, before "all" had chosen to be well no more.

Before someone had succeeded in smuggling explosives into Command and blasted the goddamn building.

He stared hard into Max's glazed eyes, daring her to stay awake by sheer force of will. "Come on, Maxie," he muttered as he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened. An explosion. A shock wave so powerful it had flung both him and Max into the air with such swift velocity they hadn't even had time to utter a single cry of surprise.

Afterward, there had only been an eerie silence, gray, ashen flakes of something whirling above them as their bodies crashed to the ground. Alec was sure he had heard the horrible thud of Max's head impacting with the concrete of the street underneath, even though the explosion had momentarily rendered him deaf.

All was silence. Even her words he had had to read from her bloodied lips. Now, though, despite her weak resistance, he finally took a scrap of his tattered t-shirt and gently, carefully wiped those traces of red away as best he could. That simple touch was all the comfort he could offer her now, for he couldn't move her. Her body, looking broken, spineless nearly, lay sprawled on the street, her dark hair a halo of curls around her head. But it was Alec who seemed to be the one in pain. He wasn't even aware of the torn expression that had settled on his face, a mixture of fear, sorrow, worry, and more than anything, hurt and affection.

Pain…

_Alec_

His name, on her lips.

"Max. Don't say anything," he urged, unnerved at not even being able to hear his own voice. "Don't move. It's going to be alright. All—"

_The others, Alec. You have to make sure they're okay…_

Oh hell, he thought, flinching, fighting hard to suppress a gagging reflex. Obviously, the opportunistic jerk in him still hadn't quite died entirely; or how else was he to explain to himself why his concern hadn't reached any farther than to include Max, who was now lying close to him in the debris? How was he to explain why his thoughts hadn't instantaneously reached out to those poor wretches in Command? Mole, Luke, Dix… Were they still alive? Was there even the remotest chance for at least one of them to have survived the explosion?

Max's eyes bore into his, but he could tell that staying conscious was becoming harder for her by the second.

His expression settled somewhere between a smile and a frown. Of course her first coherent thoughts revolved around other people, not her own miserable situation.

_Alec._

She had always cared about others too much for her own good, had become attached to them more than was advisable. He, on the other hand…

_Alec?_

"Huh?" The light touch of her hand on his leg brought his wandering mind back to the present. He cursed inwardly, telling himself to work harder at staying focused. He had to; for the guys in Command… as well as for her; for Max. Right then, Alec noticed how her eyes suddenly rolled back into her head, turning ghostly white before closing of their own accord. At the sight, he had to try and fight a sudden sharp pang of dread, cursing himself as he realized that already he had gotten too emotionally attached to the bossy brunette to remain calm. Yelling "No. Max. Max! You can't do this! You can't leave me now, come on!" he crouched down over her then, and quickly placed his hands over her heart. In a desperate attempt at discerning at least a light flutter, some trace of life inside of her, he ordered her to "Stay with me! Max! Dammit," ignoring the sudden feeling of panic creeping up in him. There was no time for panic now, no time for any kind of emotion, he reminded himself. But while he had once been eager to accept the truth of that statement, he suddenly found that he no longer could.

_All because of one Max Guevara; X5 like himself; and yet so much more._

In the split second it took for him to realize that he couldn't even feel the slightest beat of her heart underneath his fingers, in that brief moment when everything around him suddenly seemed frozen in time, Alec finally and all too clearly remembered why he had never allowed himself to get attached to anyone in the first place.

Too late now…

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_Yup. Me? Still weird as always… and on a random note: anyone else tried that spiffy "dark" button at the top? So much more fun to read stories that way! (:_


	2. 23

_yeah, playing with numbers… not always in the most obvious ways, huh? and Alec's Angel: welcome back also! As for your questions: um… (:

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_(Twenty-three)_

Alec knew his CPR. This time, though, his arms felt strangely detached from his body as he hammered life back into Max.

Successfully.

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For a second, he allowed his eyes to close. His hands were still placed across her heart. He needed to feel it beat.

---

The rhythm, luckily, proved to be strong and that recognition lent him at least a little bit of comfort under the current circumstances.

---

A laugh of relief escaped him before he managed to compose himself and all emotion vanished behind the impenetrable mask of a soldier.

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Somewhere outside of TC, Ames White sat pondering over a scrap of paper, his lips eventually curling into a caricature of a grin…


	3. 24

_Thank you so much for reading, everyone! (: It does make writing this all the more fun…

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Ames White got up from where he had been seated. It was time to leave now that finally it had been done. He had managed to eliminate what had been the cause for many a sleepless night in the last couple years… He shook his head, grinning to himself. At last, the cult had regained their superior status; the fight was over. The End could come…

Putting on a fresh shirt and buttoning it up thoroughly, he slipped on his coat, getting ready to leave Seattle behind, that dirty hellhole of a city with its abominable brood of transgenic trash—his father's cursed heritage. It was destroyed—dead, and Ames, Ames couldn't care less. Stepping out into the dazzling sunlight, he turned around to take in his surroundings. Taking what he thought to be a last look at the city, he made his way to the car that stood waiting for him in the shade of a tree. He was just about to hail the driver, when Otto Gottlieb appeared at his side, holding a thin folder in his outstretched arm.

"Sir," he said, offering the file to his superior.

"Otto," Ames shot him an annoyed glance.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but you should see this! That attack on Terminal City…"

Ames didn't wait for him to finish his report. With a trace of anger, he snatched the folder out of the taller man's grasp. Quickly leafing through it, his eyes fell all too soon on what Otto had wanted to show him. "452," he muttered through gritted teeth. Throwing the folder to the ground, he stormed past Otto, who bent down to pick up the now strewn pictures.

Snapshots of TC during and after the explosion; images of what had still been the transgenics' safe haven only a day ago…

Clouds of dust and ashes; a semi-transparent veil drifting down onto the ruins of Command, and in the middle: two forlorn figures...

… then four…

It was the second to last picture that had riled Agent White the most, though. For out of that one, Max Guevara stared up as if straight into the camera, her expression pained and desperate, her hands clinging to the back of a tall man carrying her to a car.

She had survived. _Again_, she had survived…

… _some 24 hours earlier:_

Alec couldn't believe his eyes when he saw a shadow emerge out of the haziness of the dust-filled air surrounding him and Max. It took more than a few seconds until the shadow took on a well-defined outline and Alec could eventually identify an actual person. But once he did, there was no mistaking who it was.

"Joshua!" he called when his friend came fully into view, the first shadow to turn into an actual person. He did not remain the only one, though, for right behind him appeared the silhouette of none other than Mole. Alec clenched his jaw, stifling the urge to yell, or to curse, or to cry… They were alive… Joshua was alive, and Mole—though he was looking something awful and was barely able to walk—he seemed to be in one piece, too. Alec couldn't see Dix, though, or Luke, or…

"Alec! Are you—you and Max all right?" Josh called out. Alec knew his friend was probably screaming the words, yet all he could hear was an annoying droning filling his ears, like the dust was filling his lungs, clogging his nose, his mouth, making it hard to breathe. With a quick downward glance he checked whether his companion was still with him, still holding onto life and, to his utter relief, found that she was. Entranced by a sudden flicker of her eyelids, Alec forgot to answer to Joshua's call, forgot that he was even approaching, until—quite suddenly—the dog-faced man appeared right by his side.

Falling on his knees next to Alec, Joshua shot his friend one worried glance before bending down over li'l fella and gently sniffing her face to discern how off she smelled already. Definitely off, but luckily he couldn't smell death, yet. He had barely finished gently patting her down while listening to Alec talk a little confusedly about better not moving Max, when said girl opened her eyes. He watched as the haze of unconsciousness slowly left her expression and recognition dawned on her.

"Geez, Max, you actually had me worried there for a second," Alec cajoled, playing his usual game of "pretend everything's just perfect." Of course, Joshua could see right through it and he knew that Max could, too. Even in her current state she frowned at her fellow X5 worriedly, but didn't say anything in return.

A brief grin passed Alec's face as Max grabbed his arm with surprising force. "Like a cockroach, huh, Max? You'd even survive Armageddon… —wait!" he slapped his own forehead, not grinning anymore. Unaware of his friends' worried looks, he continued, "But that's exactly why our lovely pal Ames is trying to extract your DNA, isn't it?—Of course it is…"

Joshua had wanted to ask Max if she was feeling alright. Now, though, he couldn't help rather blurting out, "Alec—feeling alright?" He extended a hand to touch a dark spot of blood issuing from a small wound at his friend's temple. But Alec suddenly rose in a blur and Josh let his hand fall onto his thigh again. He exchanged a glance with Mole, who had let himself fall onto what looked to be a huge chunk of concrete out of the old Command building, on which he now sat rubbing his leg distractedly.

"Alec?" a currently grumpier than ever Mole addressed the oddly flighty male X5, gaining his attention, which gave Joshua time to return his focus on li'l fella. She was so pale. He also noticed that her nose was worryingly dry—and warm. Sure signs that something was very wrong with her. Gently running his hands through her hair, his fingers soon came away bloodied as Max stifled a moan of pain. "S-Sorry li'l fella. Joshua will be more careful next time.—You hurt your head."

"I know. Josh?" She nearly whimpered, her expression torn between pain and worry as her hand touched his dusted face.

"Yes, Max?"

"I'm so glad you're okay… Are the others…"

"Shush, Max. You are hurt. Time for—for _you_ now; the others—can wait—"

"No, Josh! The explosion…" She sounded so insistent that it was hard for him not to tell her everything. But he knew that he shouldn't. As it was, his li'l fella had enough on her plate already with her own poor state of health. She shouldn't have to worry about any of the others. She shouldn't have to listen to him telling her about Dix, and Luke. He didn't even have words for it, just as there were no words to describe what the explosion had done to Gem and littlest fella…

An involuntary howl escaped him at the unbidden memory.

"Josh… Oh no, oh no… Gem? Dix? M-Mole?"

"Right here, Princess!" the lizard-like transhuman suddenly chimed in, saving Joshua from going into actual detail. He heard Max exhale a long, slow breath at hearing the familiar grumble. A wan smile appeared on her face.

"Mole," she whispered. Suddenly she looked frantic. "Alec," she said, "Joshua, where did Alec go, where… We need to make it right this time, we—"

"Make right what?" He couldn't follow her. Her babble sounded incoherent at most, and Joshua was unsure what to make of that realization. Obviously the explosion hadn't only made Alec act somewhat curiously, but also li'l fella.

"No, Max. Not move," Joshua insisted when she tried to rise out of her lying position, and his voice rang with the tone of an actual command. Max stared at her friend, her wide eyes imploring him to let her go. But he couldn't do that. Too much seemed at stake, and instinct told him it was better to avoid any abrupt movements, what with Max's current fragile state.

"Joshua…"

"No. Max."

"But—Joshua. Let me go, I'm fine. Just a little bit of a headache. Nothing unusual—"

"No." Joshua was aware of her hands circling his wrists, the pressure quickly increasing, as was her level of frustration. Annoyance was settling on her features, lending her the typical air of impatience.

"This is ridiculous, Josh. Let me—"

"Only if Max promises to talk—'talk _sense_.'"

"What—"

Joshua gazed at her, determined. "Max talks sense and Joshua will help her get up—make—make sure Max didn't hurt her head." He knocked on his own head for emphasis, trying to make her understand.

"We don't have time for this, big fella. Alec—is he here? He was here, I know he was. I need to—let me—Josh…"

She was struggling against his grasp, painfully tightening her hold onto his wrists as she called out Alec's name. And eventually, seeking help from his best buddy, Joshua turned around to where he assumed Mole was talking matters over with Alec, only to find the X5 staring at him and Max. A haunted look grazed his features as his gaze met Josh's. Suddenly the transhuman heard Alec mutter one quick, "You take care of her now," before he broke into a quick run.

… The next day would find Alec gone, having left Terminal City. Having left Joshua—and Max.

Right then, though, kneeling beside li'l fella and watching Alec leave, Joshua didn't yet know that 24 hours from then, Alec would be gone.

Just a day from now… and Alec didn't even turn around once again to look at them.

He couldn't…

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_Yeah, I'm trying to make sense of this, also…(:_


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